


Façade

by LeaperSonata



Category: Kingdoms of Amalur
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 23:11:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaperSonata/pseuds/LeaperSonata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bits of fic around one of my Amalur characters. Kaliane, courtesan-assassin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Façade

The first thing she is aware of is a weight on her chest, pinning her down. She opens her eyes, blinked in confusion and beginning to struggle to free herself, and it is then that the smell hits her. The _stench_! Gagging with it, she realizes that the weight on her chest is a... body? The whole scene snaps sickening into focus. She is buried in a pile of corpses. Struggling with renewed vigour, she manages to work herself out from underneath her neighbor to stand, teetering, on the heap of rotting flesh, flies buzzing around her. Looking down at herself, she realizes she’s clad in nothing but a few ichor-soaked rags and copious smears of fetid blood, and swallows hard to keep from vomiting.  
First order of business: Get off of this pile. She gingerly clambers down, flinching as she slips on blood and, trying to steady herself, closes her fingers on a decaying arm that bursts at her touch, splattering foulness. Finally, she makes it to the floor, and stands for a minute on the stone, enjoying the solidity. But now that she has a moment to think...  
Where is she? Who is she? Why was she discarded in a pile of corpses?  
She’ll think about that later. Right now... right now, she will get OUT of here. There appears to be a door up that staircase... Dropping into a loping run, she ascends. Hm. Notes on that bench. Information gathering is never a waste. Picking up the sheet of parchment, she scans it.

>   
> _Experiment Disposal_   
> _Secrecy is still important in our work, requiring specialized disposal of our unfortunate failures. Piling remains have become a concern in the lower caverns, so an incinerator has been added to deal with the wastes._   
> _This should make disposal work slightly less horrible, although you should avoid drinking water from downstream of the ash dumps. Hardly a fitting rest for the poor things, but if it's any consolation, these weren't their original bodies in the first place._   
> _-Fomorous Hugues_   
> 

...Unfortunate failures? Original bodies? That raised more questions than it answered.  
Glancing around for anything else useful, her eyes light on a skeleton leaning against the wall, a leather satchel hanging off of it and a longsword through its chest. She drops the notes into the satchel - perhaps they’ll make more sense later - and slings it over her shoulder. Hefting the sword experimentally, she grimaces. Great clumsy thing, and rusty to boot. A bad weapon is better than no weapon, however, so, holding it at the ready, she kicks the door open and steps through. There must be a way out somewhere.

*

As she darts out into the sun - free! - stone crashes behind her. Glancing back, she sees that the roof of the passage collapsed, blocking it completely. She’d made it out just in time. Turning, she surveys the world she has escaped into.  
Water! Her eye lights upon the pond at the bottom of a small cliff next to her, and within seconds she’s torn off the remains of the horrible rags, tossed the satchel down to the patch of sandy shore, and dived gracefully into the water. Bursting back out of the surface, she tosses her hair back out of her eyes and sighs in contentment, floating still for a moment before diving down again to seize a handful of sand and beginning to scour herself clean of filth.  
She leaves her hair for last, swimming over to tread water beneath the waterfall and scrub furiously. The blood and ichor showed most obviously in it, and she stayed there, working at it, until it shone pearl-white again.  
As she scrubbed and worked her fingers through the knots, her mind was working as well. Probing at her memory still turned up a black void, with flashes of bloody daggers and poisoned smiles. And a name. Kaliane. She was reasonably sure that was her, but in any case, it would do.  
Unquestioning, she lets bits of knowledge so deep it was instinct fall into her mind. She may not be able to remember her past life, but it seems it would guide her nonetheless...  
Walking out of the water, she shakes her hair out and looks at the pathetic little pile of things she’d scavenged down in that lab with a sigh. Boiled leather. Terribly pedestrian, and not the last word in comfort, either. But she has to wear something, after all - amusing as the reactions would likely be if she did not, it would be much harder to get townsfolk to deal with her if she wandered in naked. She could play baffled lost waif - without even lying much, for that matter - but that wouldn’t allow for keeping weapons. She wants weapons.  
It’d be even worse if she put the horrid leather stuff on while she was still wet, she reasons. Wringing a bit more water out of her hair, she sprawls on the grass next to the shore and stares up at the clouds.  
Her eyes drift closed, and, for a little while, she sleeps the catnap of the instinctively wary.

*

She comes awake all in a rush, without shifting from her languid repose or opening her eyes. A sound - there - her hand flashes out to seize one of the daggers from the sand next to her and hurl it unerringly at the source of the noise.  
Springing into a wary crouch, the other dagger in hand, she looks at what woke her: An antelope. Harmless. Proof her reflexes were sound, at least. Retrieving the second dagger, she cleans it on the grass, then stretches, reveling in the feel of the sun on her skin. She runs her fingers through her hair and sighs. Dry. No excuses left. Setting the daggers down, she begins to don the leather tunic, leggings, boots, and gloves. An extra piece of lacing serves to tie her hair up out of the way.  
With a last wistful look at the water and shore beside it, she turns and sets off to find this “Agarth” and, hopefully, some information about what on earth is going on.

*

Beautiful, arrogant. Powerful. Much more interesting than the little boys of the Ballads court. Much more beautiful than the Summer Fae. Interesting. An alliance with her would be powerful, useful, safe. More of a measure of security than little Wencen was offering, and in a far more attractive package. And she wants to be loved... women are less easily manipulated than men, but that is easily usable. A pretty, pliant, frail little thing exuding admiration and hanging on her every word, blushing bashful with attraction? No, she'd see through that transparent a ruse. Breath quickened with desire, eyes locked on her, lingering touches? A more subtle game, and a far more interesting one than batting her eyelashes at simple drunken Agarth and making him forget the blood on her knives.

Fooling the normal run of oblivious mortals - particularly humans - is a game, but an easy one. This holds far more interest, more challenge... and more rewards. She is beautiful, and she already calls me beloved... just to get her alone, apart from the court, stare into her eyes... The game is half-won already. Make her pine for me, when I run off for a while to continue trying to gather information, search for answers to the mystery of my identity. I'll have to be careful around Alyn Shir, however... I'm sure the lovely Maid can watch me wherever I go if she so desires. And I want her to desire. But I could give the whole game away, around Alyn. Perhaps just a touch of flirt, kindle a little jealousy in the heart of my dear Maid...

And as she said, she hasn't that title anymore. Perhaps I shall present her with the gift of a name without strings, without ballads, without a story to dance. Nothing behind it but a beautiful woman....

*

Kaliane in blood-red clinging silk, all whirling steel and death, somersaulting across the battlefield, moving too fast to be touched.

Kaliane idly tossing and catching a dagger in one hand as she walks.

Instinct and muscle memory told her how to fight - it seemed she had been proficient, before she died. Her blood sang as she flew across the ground, gone again before her foes began to notice her strikes. Lightning-quick, graceful as a dancer, and utterly deadly.

The colour is practical, you know. Bloodstains don't show on bloodred silk, and even with the magically treated cloth she'd parted with a small fortune for that was still a concern. The dress felt... right. Like things clicking into place. She feels more herself, in a clinging gown with a slit up to the thigh, like who she was is behind her, approving.

Alyn understands the dress, she's sure - after all, the other woman's belt collection is nearly as impractical a garment for fighting in. No protection whatsoever. But then, who needs it when you can move at such speeds? Armor is a hindrance, when you are shielded by speed, by always being where your enemy's weapon is not. Silk and skin and seductive smiles are all the armor she requires. The men in the towns stare and babble, unable to prevent their eyes following the slit in her skirt all the way up her leg, and imagining what lay above it.

Sex is a weapon, and she knows how to wield it.


End file.
